??? You said “PL’s are not designed for that”……as in the feature we currently have.
Not to belabor the point, but the discussion of is about PL v2, a future, unreleased version that includes scoring of outdoor workouts.
I do almost all my TR workouts outside. I have never had this happen and I stop at red lights and intersections all the time. PL adjustments are based on the survey response for outdoor WOs. There is no analysis of the intervals that I can tell happen.
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It depends in how you use it. Outside riding for me is group rides or me just enjoying outside.
PLs were the best change that I saw introduced. They allowed me to modify my workouts myself now with an understanding on how difficult the workout would be. I can create my own plan or follow TR.
If I follow TR I still can pick another ride and do it. It will adapt etc all based off of what I do and what I change. It tries to keep me on the same plan but I dont have to do it that way. It is up to me.
If I do ride outside it generally will be a long endurance ride. Yes I can associate the ride but it will not change what I will do inside regardless of what TR may prescribe. Most of my training though is in a climate with snow on the ground November to April. It isnt a focus for me to train outside.
Everyone is different. TR currently has something I can work well with. It is more then flexible enough and they have given me tools that just are helpful for me to work with.
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My outside rides during the season tend to be very hard and fast group rides…plenty of VO2, SS and threshold efforts. I see my biggest fitness gains of the season when I am doing these rides. My PL’s do not reflect these efforts and are therefore pretty meaningless for me once I get outside.
Which is fine…as noted, I am agnostic on PL’s overall. They don’t work for me and they do work for others. But the fact remains that not factoring in outside rides (not outdoor workouts) is a big flaw in the system.
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Is there any other system today taking into account unstructured rides and merging them with indoor workouts successfully? Do we have a benchmark to look at?
EDIT: many threads about it:
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Xert, Training Peaks, Join, Athletica.ai, and more. Might actually be easier to list the ones that don’t, like TR. Oh, Zwift would be one that doesn’t 
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When I was trying out join, I did a 75 mile gravel race that I labeled “all out”. Because that’s what it was. They gave me a tempo workout the next day, and when I asked support, they said it’s basically just an endurance ride.( I took three days off anyways )That was a red flag for me. So, even though those apps take into account outside rides/workouts, I don’t think they’re very trustworthy. IMO.
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I’m wondering if TR should even report Endurance level PLs?
I get reasonable use from them but I also don’t lock myself into that value only. Same for all other PLs for me. I use those but I also check out IF and TSS at times when I look for alternates or manual picks.
Regardless of their goal to make PL a 1-stop shopping data point, I still find it lacking at times and think other values help pick good workouts.
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Not a direct answer, but the PL1-PL3/4 Endurance workouts are insanely easy. The PL5+ workouts actually feel like they’re a workout. No idea what the means in terms of adaptations, but it seems reasonable to start a plan out with the easier endurance workouts and ramp them up over time, just like the other workout types.
That depends on your philosophy on Z2. I personally think you should extend time rather than make them harder, but I know there are lots who disagree.
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I tend to agree, but we often see people hitting a time cap which potentially limits progression (regardless of TR & PL really). In those cases where people can’t or won’t extend time… what do they do?
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Fair point. This is why I don’t think Z2 should have PL’s, but that’s another philosophy debate.
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I think there are really 2 aspects here that are being considered coupled when they are at least partly disconnected:
- Workout Levels are merely a way to consider the relative difficulty between workouts.
- “Progression” within the TR realm to include AT and their training plans specifically.
1 can exist and be useful to consider workouts without a direct connection to 2 below.
2 is largely dependent on TR and the way they map out their training plans along with whatever they make AT do behind the scenes with that road map in mind.
I think the key issue for most people in this is the ramp rate and/or goal of TR to continue increasing the rider PL in order to push training demand and hopefully adaptations. I don’t think the WL’s are a problem. It’s the TR plan that seemingly aims to increase them in most/all cases that seems most at issue with Endurance here. But I know this has also been a concern for some riders with particularly high PL’s in other zones too.
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Sure, but at some point, life gets in the way of adding more hours on the bike. I can only do 60-90 minutes mid-week after work and I’m already doing 3+ hours as my long weekend ride. FWIW, a PL7 Endurance workout feels “about right” to my legs. And a PL2 of the same duration doesn’t feel like it’s doing anything (though I’m glad I started there to make sure I didn’t overdo it early in the base block).
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Same. For my training this spring I chose the workouts that fit the intensity, duration of interval I wanted. The PL was useful to determine difficulty as a progression through the micro-cycle, but it is not the driving factor in my training plan.
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Overall, I work to extend my time. but at some point I also make them just that little bit harder…add in some high tempo work for 10-20’ segments, but then recover back down in Z2, etc.
So generally time > intensity, but eventually it is both.
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I just don’t see the point in doing Z2 harder, which means I have less in the tank for the hard intervals. I prefer to save that energy for my Z4+ work. That will push up my Z2, rather than purposefully trying to make my easy intervals hard.
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Yup…I get that. I also think it depends on your goals. I’m targeting longer gravel races this year, so pushing my Z2 both out (time) and up (harder) is a beneficial for me. And once I hit training rides of 6+ hours, realistically, I gotta up the pace to produce training adaptations.
Clearly no “right” answer…as always, “it depends”!!!
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